Antwerp Day 3- Chocolate, churches and charity shops!

It's been a while since my last post on our Antwerp holiday!  I finally managed to get some photos copied across.

On our Monday in Antwerp, we woke up fairly late and after a lazy breakfast, had to hotfoot it across town on the Velo hire bikes to near the railway station. We had booked to go to Antwerp's Chocolate Museum. Having been to, and loved the Bruges Chocolate museum in 2019, I was excited for this one.

We arrived and put our bags in lockers.  They told us that the whole exhibit was Covid safe with nothing we needed to touch and was timed with all doors to sections so that people in groups didn't have to have any contact with other people. It was very clever.

The whole museum was really interesting with a detailed history of chocolate from bean to processing, to wrapping to all the different types and important Chocolatiers. It was hugely informative and fun to see.

One part of the exhibition showed you a vintage Belgium chocolatier and you got to hear from the woman who ran it (a reenaction)

One part showed some of the most iconic individual chocolates and their shapes in massive form

and introduced you to the great innovators in chocolate.  Here above is the Guylian shell.  Apparently, the most recent innovation was a truly new type of chocolate- Ruby Chocolate!

There were a few sections where you could see chocolatiers decorating and making chocolates.  There are opportunities to join demonstrations but sadly there were none when we were there which was sad as I ADORED this part of the Bruge chocolate museum!

This section here was where they introduced us to the ethical side of chocolate making and how the Chocolate Line is trying to support the communities who harvest and grow cocoa for them.

There were many 'instagram photo' type locations for you to take your picture.

As we progressed through, I became more and more disappointed at the lack of opportunities to TRY any chocolate.  At the Bruges one, there were chocolate button dispensers in various places.

 

It was only in the last room (before the shop), that we FINALLY got to try some chocolate. We were met by a lady who handed us a spoon each and showed us how to operate these melted chocolate machines.  They would dispense a sample of melted chocolate of all the different blends and combinations onto your spoon.  We started with those blends with a really large cocoa content and progressed to lots of different ones including the aforementioned ruby chocolate.

The warm liquid chocolate was delicious!!  We even managed a couple of samples of a few of them as the lady just left you to it!

We went into the shop where CBC chose some presents and some treats.

We then made a hasty stampede towards St Charles Borromeo church where I would be meeting one of my favourite Belgium blogger, the wonderful Ann!

We were pretty hungry and went into a nearby cafe where we ordered some food, hoping it would arrive quickly (which it didn't!).  Luckily, Ann was lovely enough to come and join us whilst we ate out lunch!

It was SOOOOO exciting to see Ann in real life after seeing her in beautiful pictures for so long! She is just as beautiful and stylish  in real life as she is in her photos!  She's also so incredibly kind and friendly! I've often been incredulous over Ann's writing- there is no way I could write in a language other than my native one in such an idiomatic way than Ann does and she is JUST the perfect person to chat to! It's so nice to be able to be able to natter and talk about those things you can't when typing.

Once we'd eaten our lunch, we headed to St Charles Borromeo- a well known Baroque church. It was built in the 1600's.  Sadly, the original 39 ceiling paintings by Rubens and lots of other works were destroyed, around about 100 years after it was built, in a fire.

It looks fairly undecorative from the outside, but the inside is WONDERFUL!

There is a wonderful Rubens altar painting.

The church is crammed full of things to look at- marblework, wood carvings, paintings and decorative floors. The organ is pretty exciting too!

There were confession booths here- so intricate!

After this, We headed off to......yes.....THINK TWICE!  For anyone who does not read Ann's blog, Think Twice is the most incredible Secondhand clothing chain in Belgium who have a very vast array of vintage clothes at reasonable prices.  They then have sale days where items get progressively cheaper until the final day where EVERYTHING is 1Euro! Ann is the Think Twice queen!

I was fortunate enough to be there with Ann on the penultimate 2 Euro day!  Because of Covid measures, we had to queue outside. At which point, CBC took himself off to go and seek a loo, which gave Ann and I an opportunity to have a proper chat which wouldn't bore him through not knowing all the things we were talking about!  Her we are in the T2 queue! You can see the T2 poster advertising the sale on the window!

We finally made it into the shop!   We walked around and realised we were very compatible shopping partners, showing each other things we though the other would like and giggling about things!  The selection was really good! 

We both ended up making purchases- Ann one skirt and me, a couple of items to add to my previous purchases from an alternative T2 I'd visited the previous day (there are FOUR in Antwerp!)

I was really sad when we had to leave so I walked with Ann to meet Jos, her husband, who was coming to pick her up in the car.  It was really lovely to meet him too!

We'd had SUCH  a jolly, easy time and I felt SO privileged to be able to meet someone who has become a good friend via blogland over the past few years! The nice thing was that we ended up texting each other all through my visit (and beyond) and it made my holiday that bit extra special that I had a friend who I could share my adventures with, who knew exactly what and where I was talking about! Ann had already given me lots of brilliant suggestions for places to visit!

That evening, CBC and I headed out to dinner to a bistro near Volkstraat which served some traditional Belgian dishes and I took the opportunity to choose the dish Ann had mentioned to be earlier when we asked about traditional Belgian dishes. I THINK it was called Endives au Jambon. Apparently endives or chicory was dicovered by a Belgian farmer in 1830.

CBC and I are HUGE Chicory fans so I was gleeful to try it.

As you can see, I was served the most ENORMOUS portion- that's my hand right next to it! It was IMMENSE.

A thick layer of bechamel cheese sauce with ham rolls and lots of endives plus mashed potato.

I discovered, after wadingt through one half, that all the MASHED potato was on the side I left till last and I'd eaten all the endives and ham on the left so my meal ended up being rather heavy-going on the mash at the end but it was a GREAT choice.  CBC had the beef stew. Yes, he forgo his veggie ways to try it. When in Belgium....

It had been a rather wonderful day and I wondered what would be next?

Oh...you want to see my T2 purchases????

Well, as well as the two skirts I showed in previous posts (the red daisy one and the blue/purple stripy glittery one, plus a woven leather belt), I bought the above.

Most useful were the navy camisole and the corduroy rose skirt which I wore whilst there. I've now worn everything except the rainbow dress and the teal top!

Oh...and here's an unheard of photo of me trying CBC's cherry beer. I think it was a La Chouffe beer.

I LOATHE and DETEST beer.  Watch me drink it and see what true horror and abject disgust looks like (apparently it's hilarious) but CBC insisted I try this and it was pleasant! I even took an extra sip when he went to the loo!

Hope you are having a lovely day!

xx

On Angel Wings- Hexham Abbey art installation

 In Hexham, there is a wonderful, ancient Abbey that I realise I have never posted about in all the times I've been going to Hexham.

At the moment, there is a wonderful art installation there that has been created in response to the pandemic. 

Since they put the reason for it so much more eloquently than I can, here's the info from the Hexham abbey website about it:

On Angel Wings is an installation that came into being following discussion on how we could offer the community a space to commemorate those who had been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

As we slowly reopen following a turbulent 2020 and start to 2021, we realised people had been affected by this in more ways than we ever could have originally anticipated. What we wanted, was to provide people with the opportunity to be awed and provoke thought as well as allowing people an outlet; somewhere to palpably show their appreciation and respect.

Inspired by the installation in 2020 by our friends at Ripon Cathedral 'On a Wing and a Prayer', angels seemed like the perfect way to honour those who had served relentlessly throughout, those who had lost their lives, those whose lives had been disrupted and those who had fought to get through one of the toughest times they had known. An idea was devised to hang origami angels, each with dedications to loved ones, in the Abbey; therefore each angel representing someone or a group of people precious and cared about by someone else. 

We contacted the Verger at Ripon Cathedral to help with the logistics of how we could go about hanging multiple thousands of origami angels in a 1,300 year old building, which had not had ease of access to the rafters built into planning and design! After much deliberation and consultation of architects, conservation engineers, rigging teams and planning committees, we realised this was a real possibility and the plan was put into action!

The resulting project is 'On Angel Wings'; 4,500 origami angels, made by local schools, volunteers, Abbey staff and members of the public, suspended 45ft high in the Chancel of the Abbey. The angels stretch right to the High Altar from the start of the Old Choir Stalls and are lit from the sides. The angels are high enough that dedications can't be read from the ground; keeping those memories and thoughts private but still present; much like a prayer. 

I thought this was such a beautiful idea and I was keen to see it in person.

This was our first glimpse of it as we came round the organ to the choir stalls.  The effect was instantly calming and awe-inspiring.  The lights shining on the angels and the soothing music made for a beautiful meditative atmosphere.

As we walked along, we saw some examples of the angels made and some of the messages.

You can see some of the ancient stones in the background.

Here was another take on the angels from children too.

When you came into the chancel by the choir stalls, the spectacle of the angels with the majesty and gravitas of Hexham Abbey was breathtaking.  The music was just right and I was amazed by the scale of this project.

The colours change slowly with the lighting.

Unfortunately, just as I was hoping to sit and contemplate the angels, a guided tour came in and sat in the chancel and somewhat ruined the atmosphere for me (and also made it difficult to go and sit as they were spread throughout the choir stalls).  However, it was still amazing to see all the angels and soak in the atmosphere.

If you are in the north and are able to go and see it, it is well worth a visit.  It also gave me ideas for an art project at school!

Ghent by night

CBC and I decided to make an impromptu vacation to Belgium last week.  It all began about a week and a half ago when I said it would be lovely to return to Bruges, the scene of our almost engagement, to the lovely Huis Kunig, a lovely B&B we stayed in back in 2012.

CBC then decided it would be fun to go and watch one of two famous cycling races, either the Tour of Flanders or the Paris-Roubaix and so we decided to plan our short break round the second one of these since we would be at my Dad's during the first one.

On Tuesday, we still hadn't booked anything and then CBC got onto some websites and booked us a B&B in Ghent for 2 days and then one in Tournai.

It took us about 4 hours 30mins to get to Ghent from home.  We arrived at our lovely B&B (via Air BnB) and then headed out to dinner. We went to Meme Guste for dinner (traditional Ghentian fare according to our host) and then decided to walk around Ghent.

I would say it was a very pleasant, clean and safe city to walk around at night from what we found and we saw some really pretty buildings by night.

Here are a few that we saw...

Hopefully, if I can avoid my usual Holiday blog post ennui, then I will share more of our trip soon!

Have you been to Ghent?

xx

Postcards from Tunbridge Wells part 3

I thought I'd share a final few photos from my visit to Tunbridge Wells if the thought of an Opera House Wetherspoons didn't get you already.

It seems that old impressive buildings have been used for other purposes. This, I presume previous church, is now er- Cotswold outdoors.

Our friend took us down this parade of houses on the next leg of our tour and I thought how attractive they were.

We passed these attractive stone buildings to reach Trinity Theatre below.  This former church, designed by Decimus Burton, he of the blue plaque I mentioned in the 1st Tunbridge Wells post, is now an arts centre with Classical music performances, theatre and art exhibitions. It is, apparently, also a nice place to have a coffee.

These stone faces remind me of the church in Sibernik in Croatia.

Onwards, back along the main high street. The only reason I photographed this was there seemed to be so many A's in this restaurant name!

Another attractive building. I did note what the red plaque said, but alas, it has slipped my mind what it was!

Finally, we took our route back through the common to reach our friend's house.  There are some really interesting rock structures in Tunbridge Wells. These are not the famous High Rocks- you need to go out of town a little bit for those- we saw those on our cycle ride, alas without a camera,

I really like the contrast of green and stone in Tunbridge Wells.  If you look at it on the map, you will notice many areas of green or forest around- that is a fine thing, I say.

Here was another biblical name.

And near the Spa hotel, near Bishop's Down Road, there are some very attractive residences.

I thought I'd share this really beautiful shot from our friend's front garden.  Their back garden is extensive and wonderful but I loved the layout of the front.

A snap I forgot to post the first time- the Police Station also has an impressive facade.

And that concludes my pictures from Royal Tunbridge Wells.

Will you be visiting?

xx